


In the Safety of His Arms

by pepsicola



Category: South Park
Genre: F/M, mentions of non-consensual touching/kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23111221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepsicola/pseuds/pepsicola
Summary: Bebe had a boyfriend who was a junior. She liked him. He was her first high school boyfriend, after all, and he had his own car too. But then he tried to get her to do things she didn't want to do.
Relationships: Clyde Donovan/Bebe Stevens
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	In the Safety of His Arms

Panic had Bebe by the throat. She was stumbling up Clyde’s driveway with messy footwork. It felt like there was an earthquake happening because of the way her feet were sliding beneath her. Her breathing was as staggered as she was. Her hand was trembling when she reached up to ring the doorbell.

The sound was loud in her ears, and when it faded, it was still in her mind, stretching on forever.

Bebe hadn’t been _inside_ his house in years, if at all, yet in her terrified state, here she was, on Clyde’s doorstep, holding herself together by repeating _Don’t cry, don’t cry_ in her head like it was her mantra as she waited for the door to open. She hoped it was Clyde who would answer. She didn’t want his parents to see her so distraught like this because they might tell her parents, and she was afraid that if Cartman answered, he would poke fun and it would make her _really_ cry. Right now, she thought she was doing a good job at not crying.

It was Clyde who opened the door after all. It felt like it took an eternity, but it couldn’t have been longer than two minutes.

Clyde moved to greet whoever was at the door, but when he realized it was Bebe, he froze. His jaw hung, his eyes were as big as plates. His face drained of all color.

“Bebe—?” he started.

Bebe flung herself at him, her arms tight around his shoulders, and hid her face in his neck. A dry sob escaped her lips.

Clyde hugged her back, squeezing, bringing her into the house while closing the door behind them. He brought them over to the couch. When he sat down, Bebe went with him, her legs strewn across his lap. She was shaking as if crying, but there were no tears.

Clyde buried his nose in her hair. “What’s wrong?” he murmured.

With his whisper going over the tip of her ear, the reverberation of the doorbell faded.

Bebe had his shirt in her fists, and her knuckles went white as she held tighter. The ring on her pointer finger looked so gold. Fake gold, already flaking off at the sides. “I—I…” She swallowed to start over. “Remember my boyfriend?” she whispered. Her voice shook terribly.

“The junior with the car?”

Bebe nodded. “Yeah. _Him._ Well, he invited me over today. A-and…”

As she trailed off to gather herself, she felt Clyde go rigid. She glanced up to see he was scowling at the blank TV screen. He already knew where her story was going just by the way she had growled out the word “him.”

Bebe bit her lip, focusing again on his shirt. It was heather gray and soft beneath her fingertips. It was probably new, but it already smelled like him. She pressed her face closer to the fabric as she continued, “He tried to… I don’t know. We went up to his room even though I was insisting we stay downstairs. And when we got to his room, he had me on his bed. And then he started kissing me, and I wasn’t really feeling it so I told him that, but he didn’t listen. So I told him to stop. He still went on, but this time he said—he said he bought me all the things I wanted, so I owed him.” She was finally crying as she saw it all happening again in her mind. His body was too warm on top of hers. His rough lips and his uncomfortable kiss scratching her face. And his hands constantly roaming her arms and stomach and thighs. The worst part of it all was that he was too strong and heavy for her to push off.

Her skin crawled. At that moment, she wished she could have a new body just to get rid of the phantoms of his horrible touches. The movement of her fingers re-curling into Clyde’s shirt made the gold ring glint on her finger. Her junior-with-the-car-ex-boyfriend had gotten it from those dispensers at the entrances of restaurants. With the other hand that was wrapped around the back of Clyde’s neck, she yanked the ring off her finger and threw it across the room.

Sucking in a breath, she said, “So I started panicking. When he tried to reach for my shirt, I screamed. I _screamed,_ Clyde, like he was trying to murder me. It was so—so loud that it startled him away from me. I managed to get out of his house. I ran h-here.” She tripped up over the last word.

Clyde’s arms wound around her tighter. She slumped into the embrace. “That piece of shit. He deserves to go to hell for that. I can’t believe he’d try to do that to you. It’s despicable,” he growled. His voice dropped to a conspiratory hiss. “I can ask Eric to get revenge for you—”

“Revenge for who and on what?”

Cartman was coming down the stairs. Butters was following him. In the back of Bebe’s mind, a muffled thought of surprise peaked upon seeing Butters. It disappeared quickly. When the two boys saw Bebe so shaken in Clyde’s lap huddled close on the couch, they stopped to stare.

“What happened?” Cartman asked, his joking tone of voice gone.

Before Clyde could tell, Bebe said loudly, “Butters, what are you doing here?”

Butters stammered. He and Cartman traded a glance. Butters answered, “Hangin’ out.”

He and Cartman moved from the stairs to the armchair diagonal to the couch. Cartman sat on it, and Butters sat on the armrest.

Bebe wanted to keep small-talking for a sense of normalcy so she wouldn’t have to keep reliving the terror she experienced not an hour ago, but Cartman didn’t allow her to get far. “No, don’t change the subject. Who do I need to enact revenge on?” he demanded.

Clyde looked at Bebe. She put her hand on the side of his neck, silently allowing him to tell Cartman and Butters what happened. So he did. As he retold it, she clung to him with her arms hooked around his neck and her face hidden between her arm and his jaw. When he finished, Bebe risked a glance at how Cartman and Butters would react. Cartman was sneering and Butters had his hand over his mouth. Both had a mix of horror and anger behind their expressions.

His gaze still on Bebe, Clyde offered, “That asshole’s brakes can be mysteriously cut. His house can mysteriously catch on fire. He can mysteriously go missing.”

Cartman laughed wryly. There was a malicious glint in his eyes. “I can do all of those. The cops would never trace it back to me.”

Butters enthusiastically nodded along. “He can.”

Bebe found herself smiling. She was warmed to know that she had these three who were willing to defend her and hurt her horrible ex boyfriend for what he did to her. All at once, she felt better. But she shook her head. “No, you guys don’t have to do that for me. Sure, he scared me out of my wits and tried to get me to have sex with him even though I didn’t want to—”

Abruptly, she cut herself off at hearing her own words coming out of her mouth. She couldn’t believe she was defending the sick seventeen-year-old pervert who tried to fuck her. Her eyes hardened. “Actually, I’m completely fine with the brakes on his car being mysteriously cut.”

First, she looked at Clyde. He was watching her with the softest, most caring and concerned expression on his face. He was holding her without trying to touch her in a way she didn’t want to be touched. She could feel his heartbeat under her palm. _His_ warmth was comforting and calming.

She reached up, ignoring her chipped red nail polish, to comb back his hair with her fingers. She smiled, and then he did too. He closed his hand around hers. She cherished the touch. This, she was more than happy to have. She knew Clyde would never force himself on her. In the safety of his arms, she knew nothing could hurt or scare her.

Next, she looked at Cartman and Butters. They were murmuring to each other. Cartman’s face was set in a twisted grin. Butters was listening intently. Bebe assumed they were already plotting her ex boyfriend’s demise.

Pride swelled in her chest. These three wanted to protect her. If Wendy were in this situation, she’d probably be offended to be protected by three boys when she could very well protect herself. Except Wendy hadn’t been sexually assaulted by a guy who was three years older than her, a guy who she had trusted. That was why, almost like betrayal to her best friend, Bebe swore to never tell Wendy what happened to her in the dark chamber that was her ex boyfriend’s room.

But that meant the boys couldn’t tell anyone either.

“Guys,” Bebe spoke up. They looked at her. “Please don’t tell anyone about this. Especially Wendy.”

She half expected Butters or Cartman to ask why not. Instead, they nodded in understanding.

Clyde played with her hair. “Shouldn’t you report him to the police at least?” he asked.

Cartman snorted. “You can’t report him and have the brakes of his car conveniently go out not long after. You have to choose what you want.” He glanced at Bebe. He lifted an eyebrow in silent curiosity. _Do you still want this?_

Bebe pursed her lips and folded her hands in her lap. She turned her brown eyes to the ceiling, saying in an innocent tone, “I meant what I said.”

Grinning, she met Cartman’s eyes. He grinned back before turning it to Butters. Bebe fixed Clyde with it too. Soon, all four shared the same conniving smiles.

| | |

Bebe awoke the next day with full intention of spending every minute of it with Clyde. Her dad drove her. When she arrived at his house and bid goodbye to her father—Clyde would walk her home after—she rang the doorbell and waited. This time, the second didn’t drag on to an imaginary minute. It didn’t ring in her ears after it was gone. Clyde opened the door wearing his letterman jacket, the one with his last name and football number on the back. Bebe loved that jacket.

“Ready?” he asked around a wild grin. The cold air made his breath visible in white clouds.

Bebe nodded. Her hands were in the pockets of her puffy jacket, and they twitched like she wanted to reach out and hold his hand.

She blushed, but it didn’t show. Her cheeks were already pink from the cold.

Clyde stepped out of the house and locked it up.

“Do your parents know you’re leaving?” Bebe wondered. Her parents always stood in the doorway as they watched her leave, and that was when they didn’t drive her to her destination.

“Yeah. I told them earlier.”

“Oh.”

Maybe her parents were just overprotective. Or maybe they were trying to ensure her safety and keep unwanted attention away from her. Too late for that.

Clyde started towards the sidewalk, keeping his pace even so Bebe could easily keep up. Walking next to him, Bebe realized how tall he’d gotten. In elementary and middle school, she used to be taller than him. Clyde was one of the shorter boys. But sometime during the summer between high school and now, he’d shot up. Instead of looking down when talking to him, she had to look up.

“Hey,” Bebe said suddenly. Clyde looked at her and she noted he had to look down. “How tall are you?”

Clyde answered, “I’m almost five ten. Dad says by next year I’ll be at my full height.”

Bebe nodded. That would explain it. “Five ten is a good height,” she said.

He laughed dryly. “Thanks for making me not feel bad that I’m not six foot,” he drawled.

“No really!” she insisted. “I’m five four, and I don’t want my future husband to be so tall he needs to carry me every time I wanna kiss him.”

She peered up through her eyelashes to discreetly see Clyde’s reaction. He was trying to hide his smile by rubbing his face. Bebe herself smiled too.

Before showing up at his house, Clyde told her the plan was that they would go get ice cream, then go back to his house and do whatever she wanted. So as they walked down the sidewalk with their shoulders almost brushing, Bebe wanted nothing more than to hold Clyde to her and thank him for everything. He made forgetting her trauma easy. Maybe one day in the future she’d go tell a therapist, and maybe her parents, about it. But for now, she was cool with getting ice cream with Clyde in mid-March.

At the store, they veered for the frozen section where the pints of ice cream were. Bebe got strawberry. Clyde held up two cartons to her.

“Which do you think I’d like more: cookies and cream or Napoleon?” Clyde asked.

Bebe laughed. “It’s _Neapolitan,_ not Napoleon,” she corrected. She pointed to the name of the ice cream on the carton for emphasis. Last night after Clyde had texted asking if they wanted to hang out, she’d repainted her nails so they weren’t chipped. She never felt the need to be insecure with Clyde, but she shouldn’t be a hot mess around him either.

Clyde looked to where her finger was. He returned his eyes to hers. He shrugged. “Close enough. So which do you think I’d like more? I wanna see how well you know me.”

Bebe covered up a grin by pretending to think, tapping her chin. She never broke her gaze with him. “Cookies and cream. Neapolitan is too bland for you,” she answered.

Clyde put back the Neapolitan. When he turned back to her, he was grinning. “Too easy?”

She shrugged the way he had. “Yeah. You can’t ask the Clyde expert _amateur_ questions.”

For a while, they stood smiling at each other. Then he said, “We better pay for the ice cream before it melts.”

“You’re right,” Bebe said. She hadn’t realized how cold her hands had become from holding the ice cream for so long. She had been too caught up in their conversation to notice.

Clyde paid for both of them despite Bebe insisting she brought her own money. She’d even pulled it out of her mini backpack to show him.

“It’s the chivalrous thing to do,” he’d said, and after that, Bebe let him pay for them both. Chivalry wasn’t dead after all.

They ate their ice cream sitting on the curb in front of the grocery store. They had taken spoons from the self-serve soup kiosk. Back and forth, they stole bites of each other’s ice cream. With cookies and cream melting on her tongue, Bebe wondered if she should have gotten that instead of her go-to strawberry. Even still, she shoveled out a scoop and stuck her spoon into her mouth.

“Cartman and Butters have gotten really close,” she said casually.

Clyde started coughing. He covered his mouth. His shoulders shook. Bebe patted his back, afraid he was choking. She didn’t have to worry for long though because his coughing soon died out. “Sorry,” he rasped. “Went down the wrong way.”

“It’s okay.”

Clyde cleared his throat and blinked the tears from his eyes. “Yeah they have. Ever since our parents got engaged. Eric has always gone to Butters for emotional support, and I guess he needed a lot during that time.”

Bebe nodded. “He was an only child for all his life until then.”

“Mm-hm.” He looked at her. His brows were pressed together. “Why’d you bring it up?”

“When I barged into your house yesterday, I wasn’t expecting Butters to be there,” she said.

Clyde shoved a big spoonful of ice cream into his mouth. Words muffled, he said, “Yeah, Butters practically lives with us. He’s over a lot. They’re, like, best friends or something.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Then he winced. “Brain freeze.”

Bebe giggled. “I’m so used to seeing Butters with Kenny that it’s hard for me to imagine Cartman and Butters as best friends,” she mused. “I mean, at school, it’s always Butters and Kenny hanging out. I’ve never seen him and Cartman hang out.”

“Yeah I get what you mean. Butters’ best friend is still Kenny, and Kenny’s best friend is still Butters, but Butters is also Eric’s best friend. It just doesn’t seem like it because Eric puts up a mask at school. All the people he says he hates, he really doesn’t. Well, except Scott Tenorman. He _really_ hates him. It’s an unspoken rule that we’re not allowed to say ‘Scott Tenorman’ when Eric’s around, otherwise he’ll flip his shit and start a riot. Anyway, Eric only pretends to hate Butters at school. He actually really likes him.” He gouged his mouth with more ice cream. Bebe could barely decipher his words: “They’re good friends.”

Bebe licked some ice cream off her spoon. “That’s nice. I never thought Cartman would open up to anyone. But I guess he’s like one of those flowers that open up at night and close back up during the day.”

Clyde laughed. “No, he’s more like thorns. Just thorns.”

Bebe smiled, nudging Clyde with her shoulder. “Hey, that’s your brother you’re talking about.”

Clyde nudged her back. “So? He talks shit about me all the time.” He paused. “I never saw his real smile until he and Mom moved in with me and Dad.”

“So I’ve never seen Cartman’s real smile, and neither have his friends? That’s depressing.”

“Like you said, he takes a long time opening up to people.” He chuckled. “To be honest, for the first two years our parents got together, I was scared he’d kill me in my sleep. But we rarely got into fights. He mostly just avoided me. I really had nothing to worry about.”

“Now look at you,” Bebe said. “You call each other brothers without using the ‘step’ part.”

Clyde grinned. “Very true, Miss Stevens.”

She beamed back, her heart fluttering like butterfly wings.

He stuck his finger in his mouth to suck off the melted ice cream. “He’s like _The Archer.”_

“Taylor Swift _The Archer?”_ Bebe questioned.

Clyde nodded. He scooped up some of her strawberry ice cream with his spoon.

She thought she should say something about how _The Archer_ was an emotional and vulnerable song, how the first lyric that came to her mind was _All of my enemies started out friends,_ and how listening to it made her feel bad for anyone who felt that way, but instead, she said, “You still listen to Taylor?”

“Half of the songs in my playlist are Taylor.”

Bebe smiled down shyly at the black pavement under her shoes, pushing her hair behind her ear.

In eighth grade, she had Clyde listen to every single Taylor Swift song that existed. He’d been respectful about it. He bopped along to the beat, sang the songs he knew, told her his favorite from each album. After she’d shared, she went home and made a playlist. She named it “Clyde’s Top Taylor Tunes.” She had been proud of the alliteration.

When new music was released, she had him listen as soon as she’d heard the album four times for herself. And then she would listen again, but with him. His input for each song was refreshing. He never said anything critical about the songs. At first Bebe thought he didn’t want to hurt her, but she quickly realized he plainly didn’t have anything critical to say. She never would have expected that he listened to the songs on his own time after she shared them. Her heart leapt and spun and danced in her chest.

“Oh,” she said intelligently.

“Let me tell you something.” He faced her. “I only listen to rap around my friends. When I’m at home, I listen to music I _actually_ like. Taylor Swift falls under that category.”

Bebe giggled.

Clyde emptied his carton. Bebe still had half left, and it was melting under the early-spring sun.

He pointed his spoon at it. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. I’m just full.”

“I can finish it for you,” he offered.

She shot him a skeptical look. _“You’re_ not full?”

He stared at her incredulously. “I’m a growing boy. My appetite is bottomless.”

She laughed as she handed over her ice cream. “If you say so.”

Once Clyde finished, they threw away their trash and started back towards his house. Bebe still had the temptation of holding his hand, but she couldn’t get herself to actually do it. She was a flurry of feelings. She always felt safe with Clyde. She enjoyed his company. She liked his jokes. She liked _him,_ she supposed, but she’d only gotten out of a relationship yesterday. What if she was rebounding?

No, she couldn’t be. There was a reason Clyde was the first person she ran to. She’d felt this way about him since seventh grade. It was nothing new. She was only just realizing it.

The light joy she’d felt talking with him eating ice cream soon faded. “Do you think I was stupid for dating a junior?” she asked, mumbling.

“No. I think you just wanted to be loved,” he answered. Every note of his voice was sincere.

She wanted to say that _he_ had loved her all along but she had been too blind to see it. And she loved him too. She had watched him from a window every day for months just to catch a glimpse of him. She shared all her favorite songs with him. She ran to him when she was the most terrified. She hated herself that it took her ex forcing himself on her for her to realize how lucky she was to have Clyde.

Bebe pursed her lips and didn’t respond.

Clyde unlocked the front door. They walked through the threshold. Bebe took off and draped her jacket over the back of the couch.

“We can watch something, if you want,” Clyde said. He sat down, and Bebe sat next to him.

“Did you ever watch _Kim Possible_ when you were younger?” she asked.

“Yeah, of course. I wasn’t raised under a rock… Did _you_ watch _Spongebob?”_

She gaped at him, feigning offense. “Duh! Patrick was my favorite character.” She bumped her shoulder against his. “Thinking about it now, he reminds me of you.”

Clyde scoffed. “Yeah, yeah. Real funny. Let’s just put on _Kim Possible.”_

She laughed as she casted her phone to the TV.

They got through half of season one. Bebe and Clyde barely remembered any of the episodes; they were little when they first watched the show. Bebe was about to start the next episode, but then the front door swung open. Cartman and Butters walked in.

Bebe spun around, facing the two. Her pulse jumped. A million thoughts ran through her mind.

Clyde shared her anxiety. He was clutching the top of the couch. “Did you guys do it?” There was a wild look on his face.

Cartman smirked. “Did we do what?”

Clyde’s open mouth pressed into a grim line. “C’mon. Tell us. For Bebe’s sake. She deserves to know what’s to come of that scumbag,” he protested.

Bebe flashed him a grateful smile. It might not show on her face, but she wanted to know—badly. Then she focused a more pleading smile on Cartman and Butters as they made their way to the armchair they sat in yesterday. If it weren’t for their change of clothes, Bebe’s mind might have tricked her into thinking it was still Saturday.

Bebe pouted at the boys, clasping her hands under her chin. “Please?” she begged. She batted her eyelashes for good measure.

Cartman sighed and rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what you two are talking about. We were with Stan and Kyle and Kenny. Ask them if you don’t believe me.”

Clyde shot a look of suspicion at his brother before taking out his phone to text Stan.

The begging pout Bebe had on her face fell. She gazed through her mascara-coated eyelashes at Butters. “Did you get revenge for me?” she asked.

Butters replied, “Like Eric said, we were with Stan and ‘em.”

They were purposely deflecting the question. They’d done it. They were making it obvious. They just didn’t want to say so.

“Stan says they were with them,” Clyde said, looking at Bebe.

Disbelieving, she looked at his screen. Clyde had asked if Cartman and Butters were with them just now. Stan said yes. Above that, just because she was curious, Bebe scanned the messages they’d traded before. From the messages she could see, it was all about football. They’d gotten closer ever since they joined the team together.

“He’s lying for them,” Bebe argued.

Cartman shrugged. “Then ask Kyle. He’d never cover anything up for me even if my life depended on it.” Under his breath he muttered, “Petty son of a bitch.”

Clyde texted Kyle too. He gaped at his phone screen. Bebe peered over his shoulder again. Kyle replied back that Cartman and Butters left not ten minutes ago from hanging out with them at Stan’s.

Bebe was suddenly less confident about her revenge. Maybe they _didn’t_ do it. So did that mean her ex was still walking down the street trying to find another potential victim? Would another poor girl be in her place? Would the girl _get away_ like she did? If Bebe hadn’t screamed so unexpectedly, she wouldn’t have been able to get away. She would’ve suffered worse than searing, uncomfortable kisses and clammy touches.

“You guys really _were_ just hanging out,” Clyde said. He frowned at his brother and Butters. Bebe touched his wrist, averting his glare.

She said, “It’s fine. It’s probably better that they didn’t do it anyway. I don’t want them getting in trouble for me.”

Cartman stared at Bebe, his face devoid of expression. “You know,” he said, drawing out the words, “if me and Butters _were_ to help you get revenge, we’d _probably_ follow your creepy ex boyfriend from a distance. We would have found his license number through his post on Instagram from when he turned sixteen and received the car as a gift.”

Catching on, Butters said, “He shouldn’t’ve posted that, even if we _did_ decide to do all this stuff.”

Cartman continued, “We’d _hypothetically_ be waiting until he parked his car and went into the gym before quickly cutting his brakes to make it look like they’d failed on their own. Little cuts in the lines because cutting through would make it too obvious. You know, like there was a leak in his brake line that went unnoticed. Butters would _likely_ be keeping watch while I’d do all the illegal stuff.”

“Eric would supposedly be tellin’ me how to do it myself if I ever had to and he wasn’t there to help me.”

“Once everything was in place, we would leave and go straight to Stan’s to make it seem like we were there the whole time. After spending three hours playing video games and eating junk food, we would come back here and _pretend_ we didn’t do anything.” He paused, a faint smirk inching onto his mouth. “But that’s just what we would do if we actually got vengeance for you.”

Cartman’s smirk appeared on Butters’ face. “We didn’t do any of that though.”

Bebe and Clyde’s mouths were dropped to perfect O’s. They glanced at each other, then at Cartman and Butters. Bebe slowly nodded. “Yeah, of course. It’s all hypothetical,” she said.

“Just a story that never happened,” Clyde agreed.

Bebe sat back and giggled to herself, starting the episode. So this is what it _really_ felt like. _This_ was real revenge. No wonder Cartman was so obsessed with it.

| | |

On Monday at school, Bebe was feeling chipper. She didn’t know if she’d run into her ex boyfriend, or if maybe he’d wound up in the hospital. She was hoping for the latter.

In the mornings, she hung out with her friends in the language wing. It was the warmest there during the winters, but it was unfortunate during the approaching of summer.

Lingering in the hallways were students trying to ward off the cold from outside. Almost all of them were looking down at their phones. They were gaping, some quietly weeping, others whispering with shaking voices.

Bebe wondered what that was about, though a part of her already knew, deep down.

She could see her friends as she got closer. They all were watching her. It was making her nervous, and it showed in her smile when she sat down next to Annie.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. There was a warble in her voice. Had they heard something about her ex boyfriend?

Immediately, her friends started talking at the same time.

“Oh, Bebe, I’m so sorry.”

“That sucks so much. I know you liked him.”

“It’s going to be okay.”

“You always have us to talk to if you need it.”

“Do you need a hug?”

Bewildered, Bebe stared at her friends. Nichole had said “him,” and Bebe was thinking about Clyde. Was he okay? Did something happen to him? Suddenly, anxiety made her buzz. She asked slowly, “What are you guys talking about?”

Wendy took Bebe’s hands and squeezed. Her eyebrows were pressed together. Bebe silently took note that she should pluck Wendy’s eyebrows soon. Wendy said, “You haven’t heard?”

Bebe glanced at each of her friends. They all shared the same expression Wendy wore. Bebe looked at Wendy again. “No,” she said. “What happened?”

All the girls were still and silent for a moment. Then Red held out her phone to Bebe. She read the screen. It was an article headlined, “Teenage Boy Dead Due to Brake Failure.”

Bebe clapped a hand over her mouth. _Oh my God,_ was all she thought.

She scanned the words of the article. She saw her ex boyfriend’s name and a picture of the wreckage. It was his car, crumpled so much in the front that there were no more driver and passenger seats. The article explained the brakes ran out of fluid because of neglect. There was nothing about the brakes being cut.

A noise caught between a laugh and a sob of relief escaped her mouth.

Her friends took it as a sound of grief. They scooted in closer so she was in the middle of their circle. They hugged and reassured her.

Bebe still had her hand over her mouth. She wasn’t grieving. She was holding back sadistic laughter. She knew it was wrong. She was part of the reason for her ex’s death. She told Cartman and Butters she wanted revenge, and she got it. And she wasn’t sorry.

She was almost as bad as Cartman.

The bell rang and her friends pulled back. Bebe bit her bottom lip and kept her eyes on the floor, going for a holding-back-tears act.

Her friends bought it and told her she could talk to them, take it easy, everything will be all right.

Bebe nodded and sniffled like she was crying. She stood, whipped around on her heel, and walked quickly to her first period with her head down. Her curly blonde hair curtained the faint smile that betrayed her lips.

During first period Biology, people snuck glances at her. The whole school presumably knew who Bebe had dated, and word was probably getting around quickly about his death.

The word struck Bebe right in her chest. Her ex boyfriend was _dead._ He was gone. Forever. He would never come back. A small part of her remembered the good times they had. He took her to the mall and bought her anything she wanted. He got her a rose necklace for her birthday. He spent the shiny quarter he found on the ground on the ring dispenser at the front of Denny’s. But thinking about it now, maybe he’d just been buying her affections so he could claim she was being “ungrateful” when she refused to have sex with him. And he _did_ pull that on her.

Suddenly Bebe wasn’t feeling so hung up over his death.

Bio ended and Bebe made her way back to the main building for second period French. She shared the class with Clyde.

Down the halls, people gave her their condolences as she passed. She thanked them in quiet mumbles. She still had watery eyes and a warbly frown on her face. They really believed she was upset.

 _Maybe I should do Theater as an elective next year,_ she mused.

In the French classroom, Clyde was already at his desk next to the window. He was on his phone, his head low and his eyes focused on the screen. Bebe sat in front of him. It was her assigned seat.

When she turned around and put her arms on his desk, he looked up. Bebe stared at him for a moment, taking in his tousled brown hair, his eyes the same shade, his straight nose, his round cheeks. It was like seeing him in a new light. She saw new opportunity with him. She saw herself being happy and cherished and really, truly loved.

Her heart sung.

Clyde’s mouth broke into a secretive smile. She mirrored it. They were both thinking the same thing: Bebe’s disgusting ex boyfriend deserved it.


End file.
